GREENVILLE, S.C. (April 30, 2018) – Bob Jones University engineering students successfully competed in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) competitions at the Southeast Conference in St. Petersburg, Florida, April 20-21.
BJU competed against 52 teams from universities across the Southeast in three student events: the hardware competition, student paper competition, and ethics competition.
The hardware competition required teams to design and build a small autonomous robot to perform various pre-defined tasks. BJU’s robotics team finished 11th ahead of Georgia Tech, Clemson University, The Citadel, Embry Riddle, UNC-Charlotte and UNC-Asheville. Team members included seniors Joshua Adams of Ridgeway, Virginia; Emily Behymer of Taylors, South Carolina; Stephen Hansen of Travelers Rest, South Carolina; Franco Quaglia of Houston, Texas; Shuai Shao of Shenzhen, China; Nathan Tusing of Quicksburg, Virginia; and Joshua Skirkey of Merrimack, New Hampshire.
Skirkey, who served as team captain, also placed in the top five of the Student Paper Competition for his paper on autonomous robot design and fabrication.
BJU also participated in the engineering ethics competition and placed fifth out of 16 teams. Students were given a real-life scenario from the engineering workplace and were asked to discuss the ethical issues involved in each case and make recommendations. Team members included senior Jonathon Pridgeon of Greer, South Carolina, and Fleet Belknap of Simpsonville, South Carolina.
“The team overcame many obstacles to achieve what they did in this year’s competition,” said Will Woodham, assistant professor of engineering at BJU. “I am very proud of the students’ hard work and thankful to God for the opportunity they had to participate in IEEE Southeastcon.
